On commercial aircraft, passenger seats are generally arranged in a plurality of rows. Each such row comprises one or more seats and is arranged to run perpendicularly to the plane's side walls, from port to starboard. Each row is spaced one from the other at a distance deemed appropriate by the airline responsible for the aircraft. This distance is often referred to as the seat pitch.
Generally there is at least one aisle extending from the front to the rear of the plane in order to facilitate passenger ingress and egress, and this aisle separates the rows into left and right sections. Accordingly, the rows of seats may be divided into groups of seats by the aisle, with, e.g., three seats per row to the left and three seats per row to the right of the aisle.
On many commercial aircraft, reclining means is built into each passenger seat, such means designed to be activated by a passenger seated in such seat, which allows the seat's back to be adjusted from its original so-called upright position to a reclined angle deemed advantageous by the seated passenger. The reclining means, which often comprises an actuator button recessed into one of the seat's armrests, can also be used by the passenger to return the seat to its original upright position.
There is substantial prior art relating to such reclining means.
As a result of the seat pitch established on many commercial aircraft, as a passenger reclines his seat it is liable to make contact with the personal property, food, beverages, or body of a passenger seated directly aft. Banged knees, bumped heads, spilled coffee, and damaged notebook computer screens are just some of the numerous possible, undesirable outcomes of such contact.
Additionally, within airline policies and government regulations, some adult passengers travel with small children for whom no seats are assigned or are available. Such children, often held on an adult's lap and sometimes positioned on the adult's lowered tray table during the flight, are also at risk of being hit in the head or elsewhere by a reclining seat.
Even short of there being any physical contact made by a seat as it is reclined, limited seat pitch combined with reclined seats can impose a dangerous environment on passengers by restricting their legroom. There is growing evidence that a lack of movement, especially on long flights, can engender a medical condition called deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which is a blood clot condition also called “economy class syndrome.” Among the recommended prophylactic actions are leg-movement exercises performed while passengers are seated. However, legroom constrained by reclined seats in closely-spaced rows can provide passengers insufficient room to perform these exercises.
Beyond health and safety concerns, reclined seats create other challenges for people seated directly behind them. Karidis, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,229,693, recognizes that “a standard airline tray table in coach class seating has very limited space for operating a larger notebook computer . . . The problem is enhanced if the passenger seated in front of the user chooses to recline their seatback.” The novel approach disclosed in Karidis is a special linkage arrangement between a base of a notebook computer and its screen component. While this approach can be effective, this linkage arrangement has not been adopted by notebook computer manufacturers. So, a reclined seat in coach class on a commercial aircraft is generally incompatible with use of a notebook computer by a person seated directly aft. Additionally, if such notebook computer is placed on a tray table of the aft passenger and the directly forward seat is thereafter reclined, the movement of the seat's seatback can cause damage to the computer's screen component.
Lee, U.S. Pat. No. 5,758,544, discloses a lock-out device integrated with a seat's reclining activation system. It provides an apparatus via which a person other than the passenger seated in a particular airplane seat can regulate the seat's reclining—specifically, to lock out any such reclining. The device is disclosed as an adjunct for rows of seats adjacent to window exits and its input component is located to restrict access to a flight crew member. Unlike such prior art, the instant application discloses a seat recline regulating system that provides access to and facilitates activation by another passenger, specifically a passenger who is located aft of the seated passenger who might otherwise recline his seat to the detriment of the other passenger, placing at risk substantial concerns of such other passenger.
Generally, a forward passenger is unaware of the affect that reclining his seat will have on a passenger seated directly behind him. Even if the forward passenger were inclined to look back courteously in advance to help reduce the chance of contact or to discern if the reclining of his seatback would inconvenience the aft passenger, today's commercial aircraft seats are often designed and grouped such that there are no visual gaps between the seatbacks. Therefore, in advance of reclining his seat, it is problematic for the forward passenger, while seated, to turn and perform a visual check, or simply to attempt to warn the aft passenger or seek some accommodation by means of eye contact. As a result, the forward passenger often launches his seatback towards the aft passenger, subject only to some post-launch complaint from the aft passenger or a mid-action protrusion of the aft passenger's knees into the seatback and then indirectly into the forward passenger's back.
The present invention was conceived and developed in response to the current situation in which commercial airlines (a) provide passengers with seats most of which can be reclined at will by the passengers in them, to an angle as to the floor of the airplane of a limit predetermined by the airlines, (b) arrange the seats in rows, (c) arrange these rows in such proximity to each other, one behind the other, that a seat reclined normally in one row, prior to reaching its predetermined angular limit, will often, and even predictably, make significant, undesirable contact with the body, belongings, or child of an immediately aft passenger, or otherwise prevent the aft passenger from moving his legs in a health-benefiting way, (d) do not provide passengers desiring to recline with a means to visually assess aftward clearance or otherwise to conveniently seek accommodation from an aft passenger before reclining, and (e) do not provide aft passengers means by which they might act in order to prevent such deleterious effects.